Is your store ready for Black Friday?
Black Friday puts every weak spot in your store in front of a crowd of first-time shoppers. These are the fixes that matter most for collections, search and recommendations, from our Black Friday webinar with Osprey London and Vervaunt.
The Black Friday check
Eight questions on what Black Friday shoppers hit first. Two minutes, and you get the three things to fix.
Collections
Keep the first rows shoppable
Stock moves faster on Black Friday than anyone can re-sort by hand. Pin the pieces you want to lead, and set a rule that moves everything else a shopper can’t buy, sold-out styles and ones down to their last couple of sizes, out of the first rows. Your order stays. Only the dead ends move.
Newest first
Check it now
Open your busiest collection on your phone. Anything in the first two rows that can’t be bought in a core size should be moving down on its own. A pinned style keeps its place even after it sells out, so check your pins each morning.
Two more for collections
- Make room for surprise bestsellers. When a style starts selling that nobody planned for, move it up, or let a trending sort do it, instead of waiting for someone to notice.
- Build gift edits the way gift buyers shop, by who it’s for and by price. One product can sit in several edits. Our seasonal guide has the four-week Black Friday plan.
Search
Give search the same filters as your collections
A shopper filters a collection to their size, then searches for “black jeans”, and the size filter is gone. Now they’re scrolling through jeans they can’t buy. Give search results the same filters as your collection pages, size first, and the same badges and color swatches on every card.
Three more for search
- Show new shoppers where to start. Put a few picks and suggested searches in the search box, so it isn’t empty before anyone types. Your gift edits and biggest categories are a good start.
- Make shipping and returns easy to find. First-time shoppers search for them. A search for “returns” should find your returns page.
- Get plain searches right first. More shoppers now type questions like “a gift under $200”, but most still type a few words. Test your search like a shopper before you change anything.
Recommendations
Match each recommendation to its page
The warning sign is the same four products on your home page, your product pages and your cart. Each page has a different shopper, and each row should show what that shopper needs next.
Home page
The shopper is
getting a first feel for the brand
Show
bestsellers and what’s trending
Product page
The shopper is
weighing one product
Show
similar pieces, or what completes the look
Cart
The shopper is
decided, and open to one more thing
Show
what goes with what’s in the basket
Two more for recommendations
- Build the cart around the basket. Show what goes with what’s already in it, not your bestsellers. If free shipping starts at $75, add-ons around $20 give many baskets a reason to add one more. Order values tend to fall in a sale, and the cart is the last place to lift them.
- Give a second row its own job. If “You may also like” repeats “Complete the look”, change what it shows, such as other colors or a matching range.
From ad to checkout
Shop your store like a stranger
Borrow a phone that has never visited your store. Tap one of your own ads and try to buy a gift, as someone who has never heard of you. It takes fifteen minutes.
Land every ad on a matching page. The most common miss is the first one. An ad for one story lands on “New in” or “Shop all”, with different pictures and a long list of products. Send each ad to a collection that tells the same story.
Next
During the sale, and after
- Decide your plan B now. If a promotion underperforms on Friday, know what you switch to, and build it before the sale starts.
- Keep what came back empty. Save the searches that found nothing and the styles that sold out first. They are next year’s brief.
- Save tests for January. Try two product page rows against each other, such as “Frequently bought together” and “Similar style”, once traffic is back to normal, and keep the one that sells more.
- Plan the second purchase. Black Friday brings first-time customers. Decide now what brings them back in January.
Watch the webinar
Clarity in the Chaos
Axel Larsson of Depict, Claire Russell of Osprey London and Nathaniel Akodu of Vervaunt talk through what to lock before Black Friday, what to leave alone and what to watch on the day.
43 minutes · Free to watch with your email
Watch the replayAbout Depict. Depict is search and merchandising for fashion brands on Shopify, Centra and headless stores. A pin stays pinned, sold-out styles drop to the bottom of every collection on their own, and the same rules order your search results. Book a demo, or see it on Shopify, free for three collections.